


The Diver

by Carolyn_Spencer



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Imagined Rape, M/M, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:55:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25359532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carolyn_Spencer/pseuds/Carolyn_Spencer
Summary: One does not need to be well trained in the paths of logic to discern the meaning of the vision.  I am the diver, and he, of course, the sea.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	The Diver

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Self-Harm
> 
> First published in 1995 in fanzine First Time #42 and presented with warm thanks to Jenna Sinclair for her help.

_High atop the rocky promontory the naked diver stands, a white sentinel caught between red earth and red sky._

_Wind tosses long black strands of hair across the sharp angular planes of his face, licks against the top of the chest, beats accusingly on the back, a thousand small whips to flay him open to the sky._

_Red sand, spewed up from the desert's floor, from the wind's erosion in the eternal battle between dissolution and renewal, rises between his bare toes threatening to engulf his feet and for the briefest moment the diver sees himself sinking down as the sand climbs, down through the rock, down to the heart of this world which had spawned him._

_The image is disturbing so he moves on. Two steps further brings him to bare rock once again, to the very edge. He curls his toes over the last sharply-faceted spur to maintain a precarious balance against the wind which would pluck him from the tor if it could._

_Far below, the sea stretches to the horizon in every direction the eye can see._

_The illogic of the broad expanse of water appearing on this world which had so little is not distracting. Somehow it is right that the sea should be there ready to receive him. Rather, he is mesmerized by the color, for it is a warm welcoming green, and here as on a world so distant, green is the color of life._

_Abruptly the wind dies, its fading breath mocking him with the knowledge that he alone would make the decision. It could be no accident of wind that would hurl him over the edge and into the sea, but only his conscious choice. For though he wishes to dive, though it was why he had been created, the purpose for his very existence, there are equally compelling reasons why he must not. Reasons to keep his feet firmly planted on the cliff's edge. Reasons to do with right and wrong, but they trip teasingly through his mind, soft and fleeting as dreams in the night when held against the bright daylight of desire._

_Pushing the last vagrant strands from before his eyes, the diver gazes down into the clear green depths._

_Today the sea is calm. From time to time, small wavelets reach up wet fingers of welcome towards him as twin suns glisten the surface with golden laughter._

_It was not always so. In an instant, in the space between heartbeats, the sea could change. The diver knew he had seen the sea before, in some otherwhere, some otherwhen, and there it did not show its calm benevolent face. When the sea boiled black, and the rocks hidden just below the surface reared up out of darkness, the sea showed its anger at the invasion, and a diver would be torn to battered bits against the stone._

_But the specter of death does not alarm him. There are things far worse than death to fear._

_On this day the sea beckons, however. With the easing of the wind heat rises in the diver's body, a consuming heat as if all the arid land and all the barren sky had pooled their red fire together and channeled it into the single slender form, one last sacrifice to ancient gods with names too terrible to be spoken._

_Right and wrong no longer matter. Morality, like the wind, is a dying whisper when below is water to quench the fire._

_Dizzy with the enveloping heat, a wild yearning fills him. Never had he desired anything more. To join with the sea, to feel its coolness encase his fevered body, to sink down into its green, life-giving depths. To be free of the land which imprisoned him, to spread his arms and soar and be held for one breathless moment motionless against the sky, held in perfect balance for the first time in his life. To have the decision finally taken out of his hands. To look down and know that the sea, welcoming or not would have to receive him for once the final step was taken, no power in the universe could call him back._

_Knees slowly bending, the muscles in his thighs and calves tense as he brings his arms in a wide arc behind the body poised for flight._

_The diver raises his eye to the sky and smiles. In a moment, neither he nor the sea would have a choice._

* * * * *

I rise from the meditation stone, hands clasped before me, gasping for air while my heart thrums madly in my side.

In the scant seconds it takes to make the transition from vision to awareness, the coldness of the room assaults me as a blow, a reminder reality is not the gentle coolness of a much desired plunge, but the bitter gray cold of a pre-dawn mountain night.

In the eleven point four Standard months I have been at Gol the vision of the diver has returned to me each night. And each night some small additional piece is revealed.

For months the vision consisted of the laborious climb to the peak. This marks the first time I have reached the top and been permitted to look over the edge. And yet…it seems I have been perched atop that precipice for my entire existence.

One does not need to be well trained in the paths of logic to discern the meaning of the vision. I am the diver, and he, of course, the sea.

It would be illogical to try to direct the vision in any way. The purpose of meditation after all, is to guide one in the search for self-awareness, but to see this same scene night after long endless night seems destructive as well as redundant. I have attained no new insights, learned no new ways of coping. All the questions raised were answered years ago. It has long been a given in my life that he is the center about which all things revolve.

Riven from the bare rock of my monk's cell is an opening that serves as a window, and leaden-legged with weariness, I approach.

Through it, away in the west there is a hint of light. My joints are still stiff with cold. It takes several minutes of concentration to send extra blood flow to extremities, to regulate breathing and heart rate. Finally I can unclasp my hands. It is as if I were an aged one, but it is not my body that has aged, just my soul.

I school myself to patience. The ceremony I am about to undergo today will surely bring the vision to its final culmination and therefore conclusion. By the time the suns have set this day I will be free of him.

I take a deep breath of the cold air and fix my eyes on the west. Stars still spangle the sky. They are the clearest these last few moments before dawn. Demanding attention from the very edges of my sight, I refuse to acknowledge them. There is one star, faint and so very far away. Easily overlooked. A minor star, middle-aged as stars are catalogued, but it draws my gaze inexorably, if attention falters for even the briefest moment.

It would be a simple matter to request assignment to another room. A room from where the opening in the stone looks out upon a different section of sky. I have not asked for it, nor will I.

I will not allow my attention to falter.

Down by my pallet on the floor is a carafe of water. It is made of stone, as is most of what is found here. Stone and sand. They make up the composition of my world.

I have spent much of my time here studying the Ancient Writings. They tell how The All took the stardust from the sky, mixed it with the stone and the sand and breathed the breath of life into the composite to form the first Vulcan.

The Writings do not say, but I know how he would have appeared, this first man of my race. Broad of chest, golden-skinned with a hint of the stars from which he came in his bright shining smile, but most clearly of all I can picture his eyes. Light and life pour from them. He is named K'dramareth…warmer of the soul, bringer of the light, killer of the darkness. But it is only legend. 

First sun has cleared the horizon, and the stars fade.

Back at the window, I find my hand gripping the carafe painfully hard, and my traitorous eyes have searched out that one pale flicker of light so far away. As I watch, it disappears from sight.

It seems my attention has faltered after all.

I remind myself I do not believe in legends. Legends are not logical.

Loosening my grip on the carafe, I drink, look to the west and watch first sun rising. The water is cold in my mouth, down my throat. It has been long since I have had water. And food longer still.

I return the carafe to the stone floor next to a plate of congealed uneaten food, and in rising find the room slowly spinning around me. Hastily I brace my hands against the stone on either side of the opening. The walls are cold. Cold and hard. They are both reality and refuge. Outer walls to protect me since my own inner ones lay in ruins. I cling to them as the reeling sensation slowly vanishes.

I must remember to eat this day. Master T'Sai will not be pleased. She has spoken to me of this before. I do not know how she is aware of how much I have eaten, or rather not eaten, but she is. I do not believe there is much here that escapes her notice.

The carafe of water beckons from the cold tiled floor…Come. One more swallow. Just to ease the dryness. The flesh betrays. An insidious incubus that whispers of thirst eased, hunger assuaged, exhaustion relieved. And other nameless needs…. The ones that brought me here. The ones that must be fought and conquered. The ones I fear the most of all.

Therefore the carafe remains on the floor, and I turn away to strip off my robe and wash in the basin, breath faintly steaming in the dawn air.

I put on a fresh black robe, still with the three runes that sign my name, clan and world. I am still S'poch of Xtmprsqzntwlfd of Tsaichrani. Still an acolyte. But as of tomorrow I will wear white and one day, Like Master T'Sai, I will take the necklace, a new name and belong only to The Way.

In the cleft of stone second sun has appeared. Sevor, The Follower, brother to the first.

I do not stay to watch him rise. Today I go into the desert for the Ka'ama, The Stripping, and I follow no one now.

Across from the window is the opening to the corridor. There are no doors at Gol, no privacy. To those that seek The Way none is needed. 

Immediately I see them. Two items. The first is totally expected. The ka'amaran, the ritual thin-bladed knife used during the ceremony. It is the second item that is jarringly out of place. At some time during the night someone has placed a clear glass bottle next to the knife just within the opening to my room.

I pick up both objects and watch as inside the bottle thick green liquid swirls. Green as the sea. In this room of black robes and gray stone, its color is harsh, shocking. Obscene. It does not belong here. Tightly stoppered, I nevertheless can smell its aromatic herbal odor, but the smell exists only in memory, not in the close confines of my room.

To prevent damage to sensitive skin, the emollient is placed on all exposed areas where it quickly turns colorless and is absorbed into the skin. Outworlders are given adequate doses when they arrive and urged to continue its use until departure. Outworlders such as traders, visitors, and Humans who marry native ambassadors. Outworlders such as mothers.

It is a smell with which I am very familiar. For all the years of my youth it called me to meals, wafted above my head on outings, and until my father forbade it, enclosed me in warm damp embraces before I went to my bed at night.

More important is where it was not. It was not in the homes of those I wished to cultivate as friends, those among whom I sought an acceptance that was never forthcoming.

It has set me apart my whole life.

Carefully I balance both the knife and the bottle. Different aspects of my life, and I trapped between them where I have always been. I wonder why the bottle feels so much heavier than it should. Then I know. I am holding my humanity in the palm of my hand.

Someone here has decided that half-breed seekers after The Way will have need of the emollient's protection in the desert today.

The flesh betrays. With anger. For the briefest moment I am tempted to hurl the bottle and its contents against Vulcan stone, to watch the green liquid battered against the rock and slide in ineffectual drops down the roughened surface. I restrain myself. It would solve nothing. It would be a wasteful and illogical action. It would only demonstrate what I already know, and one does not repeat an experiment over and over again when one has already proven the validity of the hypothesis.

In any contest between Vulcan strength and Human love could there be any doubt as to the victor?

Tucking the knife into the sash of my robe, I prepare to leave. Deliberately, I place the bottle down in exactly the same place I found it.

It is far too heavy to carry.

* * * * *

Beyond the gates all paths lead down, and within hours I am at the foot of the mountain. The desert's heat wavers the air before me, rising through my sandals, searing the soles of my feet.

Above, a single t'favaron wheels and dips before finding a rising current of air, his mournful lonely cry piercing the morning stillness. One final sweep of silver wing and he is gone. I follow after. The desert is trackless, and one direction will serve as well as any other.

First sun is high, second sun still climbing, when I stop.

Facing the direction the suns will set I take the ka'amaran and place it on the sand. The black robe is removed, folded neatly and laid aside. Atop are placed the sandals. The being who will don them again after The Stripping is not the same being that now kneels naked in the sand.

I open my mind. I am ready.

The first images come lightly, swiftly: _Pavel, face shining with eagerness to learn, to experience. So quick to laugh. So young. I never asked for your hero-worship. For your bright eyes to light on me with admiration. For you to stand at the science station as I did, or to do calculations as rapidly as I could. You asked it of yourself, and often felt you had disappointed me. I never knew the precise words that would grant reassurance. I beg forgiveness. It was a privilege to watch as you passed from adolescence to maturity, my young friend. I wish you well._

Taking up the knife I strip a small slice of skin from my left index finger. The blood wells up and over, dripping green onto thirsty red sand. It is ceremonial only, this ritual from ancient days. With both mind and body prepared, it is a release to let the drops flow. With them go the regrets, the memories, the emotions once associated with this being. I let it continue for a moment, then concentrate. The blood slows, stops. Already the small wound is healing.

_Hikaru. Capable hands to steer us. Capable mind behind them. So often I would turn to see you looking at me with a wistful look upon your face, as if you wanted to share some insight with me, some Human joke, as if in that way we could be friends. By the time I had learned how to respond our patterns were firmly set and the connection was not made. You are an honorable man, Hikaru, and one day you will make a competent captain._

Left middle finger.

_Nyota. Dark laughing eyes. Lovely face, teasing smile. I never told you how much I enjoyed our duets in the recreation room. How much your staunch presence, calm support, and acceptance meant to me. May you live long and prosper._

Left ring finger. I allow the blood to flow longer this time. Eagerly the desert accepts the offering. When I stop the bleeding she, too, is gone.

_Montgomery. Companion in curiosity. Bright inventive mind, generous giving spirit. I enjoyed the times we worked together and arrived at solutions we never could have apart. Never did I visit your cabin, nor you mine. Never did I call you friend, though I did come to value you as such. May peace be with you._

Left smallest finger. Deeper cut. Longer flow. More difficult to stop, but I eventually do. It is surprisingly painful to let them go, unravel these lives from my own like threads in a pattern I had not recognized until now. But I must weave a new tapestry and they cannot be a part of it.

_Leila. Zarabeth. Christine. Each of you was worthy. Each of you wished from me what I was incapable of giving. Loyalty, honor, love. I would have ceded them to you gladly had they still been mine to bestow, but how can one give away that which already has been given to another?_

_I regret the unhappiness I caused each of you._

Right index finger. Middle finger. Ring finger. One deep slash for all three. Long minutes later I stop the bleeding, command my body to heal the wounds. The desert has taken them into itself as it has all the others. The memories, and the emotions connected to them are gone.

_Mother. Father. I was a disappointment to you both. For not being more Human. For not being more Vulcan. Why is it you accepted so easily in each other that which you could not accept in me?_

_In this moment of our parting, I send you both my love._

Right smallest finger. Deepest cut of all. It takes much blood and a very long time before the emotions leave. Longer than I would have thought. But blood and pain accompany the creation of any new life. Often a fetus must be dragged kicking and screaming from the sanctuary of the womb, but leave it must. Or die.

_Leonard. Both balm and irritant. Accomplice and antagonist. Companion. Confidant. Bane of my existence. Warrior. Healer. Gadfly. And…friend. You saw things in me even he did not. Did you ever know that finally I saw beyond the cool blue eyes and gruff exterior to the lonely man inside? That I recognized a kindred spirit? That I named you brother?_

Across the width of my right palm from one side to the other. I watch the knife sink deeply down into the flesh, but the blood does not immediately well up. Sluggishly it rises to fill the wound. I am forced to smile. It is so like the man, tenacious to the last. I close my hand into a fist. _You must leave me, my friend, for both our sakes,_ I tell him.

At last the blood erupts between clenched fingers, up and out and down in a rush to the soaked sand. _Thank you, Leonard. Though never logical, you were always compassionate. I charge you with one last request. Watch over him for the sake of my katra. Peace and long life._

It takes a very long time to stem the flow. I am exhausted from the effort it takes. Up from the sand rises the scent of my blood, sharp and acrid and stinging the nostrils, bitter at the back of the throat.

I am tired. And cold. Strange to be so cold with the desert's heat quivering the air.

A few last drops spill to the ground, and I wish nothing more than to follow them, to lay my body down on the burning sand. I am close to the end now. Already my body feels lighter, almost weightless from the offering. It has been my experience that emotions are heavy encumbrances.

But I cannot stop now. Not now, when I am so close to the end. There is only one more.

Lifting my head, I look out through the haze. Far away a figure dressed in white approaches. Approaches, yet never seems to get any closer.

I do not need to see his face to know who it is.

In my ears, a Human heartbeat sounds. Softly at first then gradually louder and quicker until it is the rapid thrum of my Vulcan heart I am hearing. Louder and quicker yet again. Now the beats are indistinguishable from each other. I clap my hands over my ears but the sound escalates yet again. Buzzing. Buzzing! I think I shall go mad if it does not stop!

* * * * *

**The insistent buzzing noise finally rouses me, and I realize it has been sounding for many long minutes. I did not notice. The cabin is dark, lit only by the Watcher's soft intermittent glow, and even that is too bright to my sensitive eyes. Amid the smoky haze of Benecian agawood incense, the blind eye of a shattered computer screen stares blankly back at me. I must have destroyed it after keying in the command to lock my door and random access the opening sequence.**

**I do not remember.**

**Nor do I remember removing my clothing, but I must have since I am sitting here naked on the floor. It has not helped. Even the gentle swirl of reconstituted air is an agony on my distended organ.**

**Again the buzzer sounds. And is followed by the unmistakable sound of someone tapping in an over-ride command.**

**No!**

**There are only two with the authority to enter any part of the ship and this is not McCoy. Through the rooms of my cabin and the durosteel bulkhead door his scent reaches me. Nostrils flare with the intoxicating odor, and I drag a breath of it down deeply into my lungs, starved for the smell of him.**

**I manage somehow to rise to my feet, pick up an overturned chair and place it strategically before my nakedness. I had hoped it would be over before he returned. Hope, of course, is illogical.**

**The door slides open and he is there, still dressed in the native tanned leather tunic and leggings of the Urgan mountain people.**

**“Since when do you lock your door to me?” If he is shocked by my appearance or the condition of the room there is no hint of it in his voice.**

**I had thought myself long beyond the capacity for speech, but for his sake I manage to speak the necessary words.**

**“Get…out!” Harsh guttural sounds like broken glass in the room's silence.**

**His beautiful face breaks into a small rueful grin. “You know I can't do that,” he says softly.**

**The sharp sound of twisting metal causes both of us to look down. There between my hands are the broken remains of what used to be a chair.**

**_Very well then,_ ** **I think. _Let him see!_ One angry swipe later the destroyed chair impacts with the wall, my nakedness revealed.**

**Eyes drawn to my tumescent organ, his throat moves in a nervous swallow. Finally forcing his gaze up to meet mine, the firm chin sets in that stubborn look I know all too well.**

**“Damn all covert surveillance missions. And damn you for not telling me. You knew I wasn't allowed to have a communicator on this assignment. Bones broke regs all over the place when he finally figured out what was happening and came down after me.”**

**“…did…not want…either of you…involved.”**

**The green eyes darken. “Well, we are. Dammit, Spock, when are you going to realize that we…care…about you?' A quick glance down then back. “Getting you to Vulcan isn't an option this time, is it? You don't have anyone waiting.”**

**_It was always you. Always you…even the first time._ ** **I shake my head.**

**“Didn't think so.” He begins to open the leather ties on the tunic.**

**Reeling away, I come up with my back pressed against the wall, hands splaying out but finding no purchase on the smooth surface. In this ultimate betrayal of the flesh there is nowhere left to run.**

**“It's all right,” he says. “I stopped by Sickbay. Bones prepared me with some cream…uh…inside.”**

**My head swings wildly from side to side.**

**Hands pause on the fastenings and his eyes are again bright green and very steady. “Yes,” he says in a tone that allows no argument, and returns to undressing. The single affirmative reverberates in my mind over and over again.**

**In moments clothing litters the deck and he takes a step towards me.**

**“It'll be all right. You'll see.” Said so gently. So gently.**

**My hands lash out, fasten on his shoulders. _No. Nothing in my life will ever be ‘all right'_ _again_. Through the hazing of my sight, the v'lesh'a'em, the green fire, I watch the calm accepting face of this man who is my captain and my friend.**

**I would weep if I were capable of it, for this is the only first time we will ever have.**

**Roughly I pull him to me, and we are skin to skin, my organ weeping onto his dry belly, prodding, poking, searching for an opening that is not there, unbearable that it is not there; ice and flame and pain and pleasure and need that has teeth and claws and I can barely see your face through the fire, and oh, not like this, didn't want it to be like this, wanted to give myself to you, open myself for you, be gentle with you…I can be gentle…wanted you to be inside, and feel your heart's pulse inside your penis, inside my body, inside…must be inside….**

**Somehow we are down with the rough deck cover digging into my knees, hands firmly gripping his hips, as I piston in and out, in and out, and I do not even remember the moment of our joining.**

**Amid the golden fleece of his pubic hair lies his quiescent organ. He does not want this. He does not want me.**

**My hand shaking, I reach for him. Surely now, now that I am so close, I can bring him some small pleasure, but at the last moment I stop. Laughter bubbles in my throat, catches and dies without having been born. I think I finally have learned the meaning of irony.**

**It would be too intimate to touch him there.**

**I mean to return my hand to his hips , to hold him still for the final thrusts. As if it had a life of its own, I watch my hand rise, up across the golden body, up to hover above his face rigid with pain.**

**_No! Can not! Must not!_ **

**But it is too late…too late…. I know it is too late but still I manage to wait for one last moment. Back arching, and thrusting and thrusting…. Hair tousled, gleaming with sweat, and golden as sparkles on water…. Eyes wide, so trusting, green as the sea…the sea…and he manages a tremulous smile…and nods his permission as my fingers descend toward his face. _T'hy'la of my soul, you do not understand!_**

**Not his body that I want most of all. The howl rises, animal and primitive, bestial and deafening, triumphant and joyful, and only existing inside my head.**

**I can forgive the need, but how will I ever forgive the joy?**

**It is his mind I desire.**

**It is his mind I will take.**

**My fingers land in the bonding position.**

**I should have known.**

* * * * *

_The diver hangs suspended against the sky._

_Freed from the tyranny of the land, his soul, shrouded in silence until now, sings the song it has been waiting to sing since his birth._

_Below the sea waits, calm and accepting._

_The long slow fall is an ecstasy of anticipation, of perfection in the sweet rush of air against the fevered body, in the wild pulsing of the heart in the side, in the blood coursing, in the breath caught and held._

_In the fulfillment of his destiny._

_Breaking the surface is a homecoming to a place never before visited but intimately known, belovedly familiar._

_Down he sinks, down to the deepest, most hidden depths._

_He spreads legs, arms, his back arching. Head thrown back, he opens his eyes wide, his mouth wide, taking the welcoming coolness down to his very soul._

_Bright quick currents caress with an initially tentative touch to face and hands, then flit away to be replaced by others that swirl bravely against body and through the long fanned-out strands of hair._

_Currents of lilting laughter, courage, blindingly fast bursts of intuition to dazzle the mind and catch in the throat, honor and duty and loyalty. All of these and more. Delighted, the diver accepts them._

_Darker ones, too, that hit with more force, deeper, richer, thick with feeling. Jealousy. Competitiveness. Possessiveness. Passion. These he accepts as well._

_Harder the currents push, and then again even harder still. Within seconds the diver is buffeted by them. As he watches the water slowly darkens._

_Quickly he strikes out for the surface, powerful legs pumping, but the water is turning black and the surface seems very far away._

_The currents tear at his body, swirling, spiraling, spinning him into a vortex, and all is dark and he must get out! Fighting his panic, he strokes harder, but he is no longer sure what is up or down or even if he is headed in the right direction._

_Finally his head breaks the surface to see sky meet sea churning black as the void. Lightning splits the sky. In the flash of light, he sees the rocks rear up from the depths. Far above his head they thrust, edges sharp as knives._

_The diver weeps, but the tears fall infinitesimal in the sea's immensity and are quickly lost. As he is lost._

_The angry waves hurl him up and fling him towards destruction._

* * * * *

**My seed pours out and into the body I hold so tightly to my own. Between my fingers the beloved face contorts to a silent scream.**

**His eyes, filled with horror, are black as endless night.**

**Kroykah…!**

* * * * *

“Kroykah!”

The blow impacts across my face, quickly followed by two more.

“S'poch! Thee must stop!”

I look up but it is not his face I see. It is T'Sai, white robe spattered with blood.

“But it did not happen!” I tell her.

Hands grip my shoulders as she shakes me vigorously. “S'poch, thee must stop the bleeding.”

_Bleeding?_

Looking down, I see my chest and legs and thighs are covered with green and speckled with white ejaculate.

Across my outstretched wrist the ka'amaran bites deeply into the flesh. Blood, in rhythm with my heartbeat, spurts upon T'Sai's robe.

There is no pain.

Carefully I remove the knife from the open wound to lay it on soaked sand.

“Dost thou need assistance to stop the flow?'

“No.”

“Then do it now.”

“I cannot, Master. He is not yet gone from me.”

“Give me thy mind, child.” Without waiting for permission she enters, a cool wind blowing over embers, but they do not ignite under her touch. Rather one by one they are extinguished. One last one stubbornly refusing to die, continues to burn. I find myself struggling to keep the ember bright, a beacon glowing in the darkness.

_If the light goes out, how will I find my way home?_

But my mind is no match for hers. The last ember flares brightly for an instant longer then succumbs.

When the meld is over I open my eyes. T'Sai's face swims before me edged in black. The wound has ceased to bleed.

“This will need treatment, S'poch. More than a healing meld. And thy skin is damaged from the suns.” She says this calmly, but the words are accusations nonetheless. Rising from the sand is surprisingly difficult. She helps me into the black robe, places the sandals on my feet, tucks the ka'amaran into the tie of her robe. Firmly gripping around my waist with one hand, she uses the other to draw my arm across her shoulders. I sense no feelings from her at the contact and have none of my own.

Our long shadows loom before us as we start back to Gol. 

Strange that I should be so tired. Strange that she should have come after me.

“Why hast thee come, Master?' The suns have not yet set.”

Her slight form supports me as we walk. She does not look at me.

“Three days have passed, S'poch, not one.”

Above wheels a lone t'favaron searching for its mate in the darkening sky, and I wonder if it is the same one that saw me off three days ago. Its cry echoes across the desert.

In it I hear his name.

It is then I realize I have failed the Ka'ama.

* * * * *

It is the pain that awakens me, a dull throbbing in white-bandaged wrist, back aflame with heat, sharp spurs of it radiating across my shoulders and down the length of my arms. My eyes fly open. There is no gradual wakening, no softly slipping from unconsciousness to awareness. I am lying naked on my side on my pallet in the twilight dimness of my room, facing the window. I have been cleansed, my wrist attended. By the quality of light, I know first sun has already set, and The Follower is close behind.

When we returned to Gol, T'Sai insisted I have water and food, both of which I did not want, that lay heavy and acid in my stomach. “Rest,” she said as once more she touched my brow, “we will speak tomorrow.”

I do not see her, but I know she is there kneeling on the floor. Turning my head adds to the pain, but it would be the coward's way not to acknowledge her presence.

Tomorrow has come.

I sit up, swing my feet over to touch the stone. On the bed there is a short robe, but I do not put it on. When one has seen the nakedness of the mind, the nakedness of the body matters little.

“Master T'Sai.” My voice is hoarse, as if I had spent years in the desert instead of only three days.

She views me out of her dark eyes, and where I expect to see ridicule and condemnation there is only compassion.

“That was very foolish, S'poch,” she says softly.

I start to rise. To sit or recline in the presence of a Master without express permission is not allowed.

Her hand lashes out, cutting through the space between us in a sharp, preemptory gesture. “Stay,” she orders.

I obey.

She returns her hand to join its mate in her lap. For a long moment I watch them. They are withered, old, gnarled and spotted by the more than two hundred years that separate us. Yet they are strong. She alone brought me back from the desert. Her body has aged but not betrayed her. I am as shamed by her will as I am not by my nakedness.

I find my eyes have lowered, only to rise abruptly as I hear the unmistakable sound of a stopper being drawn from a container. There in her hands is the glass bottle.

“No.”

T'Sai's dark eyes catch and hold mine. “The suns have severely damaged thy skin, S'poch.” She pours some of the green liquid onto the palm of one hand and holds it out toward me. “I offer thee surcease from pain.” Her words are as the desert's shifting sands, hiding so much more that they reveal. 

I am suddenly aware that second sun has set. Aware that when Eridani's suns rise tomorrow I will still be wearing the black robe of the acolyte. The soft flickering glow from the Watcher is the only light in the room. Her face, her body is shadow, the light falls upon the healing moisture in her hand. It gleams its cool, wet, seductive promise.

How much I long for its soothing touch is directly proportional to how wrong surrender would be.

“No,” I say again, forcing my eyes up from temptation to lock with hers. “Grant me this, Master. Please.”

The blood pounds against my temples, the tight veins at neck and throat while I listen to her quiet breathing and wait for her decision.

Endless time later, she empties the oil back into the bottle and replaces the stopper. Her eyes are shadows, lost among the others in the room, but I could find her by their heat alone.

“Very well.”

“I express gratitude, Master.”

She rises in one fluid motion. “What does ‘kadiith mean, S'poch?” she asks, her voice a soft breath in the silence.

“I…I do not understand….” Surely she does not mean me to answer. It is perhaps the earliest lesson a Vulcan child learns to comprehend. She cannot think I have forgotten.

“Answer me.” Suddenly her voice is harsh strident, and far too powerful to ignore.

“‘Kadiith,' Master T'Sai, ‘is the mastery of the unavoidable,'” I quote. “What is, is.”

Leaning down she places the bottle into my hand, closing my fingers firmly around the glass. “Precisely,” she murmurs, then turns and is gone.

Rising from the pallet I push the stopper down so that not even one drop can accidentally touch my skin. The pain rears up, threatening, demanding, but I walk to the meditation stone and kneel in the proper position.

No. It did not happen. Not the rape. Not the joining of minds. Not the bonding. I left before it could. But something very like my vision would have had I remained in his proximity. Indeed, I would have gone to him at my next Time of Burning though there be a galaxy between us, or he to me. I would bond us. And he would allow it because of the warm, caring, compassionate man he is. Because of the friend he is.

Then day by bitter day I would be forced to watch as our thoughts intermingle in his head, as he becomes less sure which are his thoughts and which are mine. And what will I do on that day when he turns to me, and I see the green eyes cloud with suspicion that I am altering his perceptions, his thoughts? When he finally realizes that he will never be alone inside his own mind again? When his ability to command is threatened? What will I do on that day the affection he feels for me turns to hatred?

Will I fall to my knees before him? Will I promise to shield even harder than I already do, even though I know it is because he is psi-null and has no shields that our thoughts constantly bleed together? Will I swear to laugh more, cry more, feel more, become more Human if only he will love me?

What will I do on that day when we are bonded and are so much less than we were apart? Less than Human. Less than Vulcan. When our bond turns into an ugly, putrid thing, an obscene parody of what it should be and still will not die?

No. It did not happen. Nor will it.

What did happen was the slow walk to a transporter pad, the hurt confusion in his eyes, the disappointment so evident though he tried, for my sake, to hide it.

He held out his hand to me in the Human custom of parting, and I took it.

“I hope you finally find what you are looking for, my friend,” he said.

He must never know I already have.

I place the bottle in the niche at the Watcher's feet. It will serve as reminder of how very far I have yet to go. It is my humanity that has made the journey such an arduous one. Were I truly Vulcan I could control these emotions that threaten what I hold most dear.

I will be a Master someday, I vow, for the Masters have defeated even the pon farr. I will wear the necklace of logic, and on that day I kneel at the Great Surak's feet, I will quite logically smash the glass bottle to pieces.

There is no other alternative but death.

I am a logical man. I will try this first.

Next to the Watcher lies the ka'amaran. Gathering my long hair in one hand it is a simple task to cut it close to the scalp. As I was when I came to Gol, so I will be now.

I will start at the beginning. Again I will start at the beginning. And yet again if need be. I will start with the revnem, the first and most elementary meditation exercise, the one I learned when I was four.

“I am a Vulcan. There is no pain.”

I have lied, Master, and beg forgiveness, but what is must not be.

Finally I am able to slip into first level. It takes far too long to achieve.

* * * * *

I need not have been concerned. My second Ka'ama was completed successfully and without incident.

I have now been at Gol for two point seven five Standard years, nine Vulcan seasons, and even those who were at first concerned whether a hybrid could complete the rigorous training necessary for the Kolinahr agree that on this day I may enter the ranks of the Masters. Now I will be permitted to share in the vast knowledge to which the Masters have access. Now I will take the first steps on the path to true enlightenment. No longer will my flesh betray me.

There is no pride attached to this achievement, no sense of accomplishment. There is no feeling at all.

As is proper.

I have chosen to take my nightly meditation period at the base of the steps leading to the statue of the Great Surak. Ahead wait the Masters responsible for my training, Master Staton, Master Saren, and of course Master T'Sai.

With fingers folded in the triangle of serenity, I take this last opportunity to reflect upon the vow I am about to make. This is according to ritual, for once taken the vow will remain unbroken until death, but unnecessary in my case. I am at peace for perhaps the first time in my life.

I am about to rise, when I sense…something. Something from outside myself. A calling. A consciousness. Fleeting. Ephemeral. A touch and then it is gone.

I stand, hold up my hand to block first sun's breaking light, look up at the still dark sky from where the call came, but nothing is there. I wait, but the call is not repeated, and I could almost believe it never happened.

The Masters await. Perhaps this is one final test they have set. Whatever this was, I must not allow it to dissuade me from what must be done.

I climb the steps to the base of the statue.

Master T'Sai begins the ceremony. In her hands rests the necklace.

Kneeling, I prepare to receive it.

There…again. The call. Stronger this time. More insistent. Thought waves of incredibly logical and precise intelligence. The most powerful mind touch I have ever encountered.

And something else.

_Spock, I need you._

His voice I thought forever stilled!

He calls me! He dares to call me now when I am so close! And with the words he knows I will find impossible to refuse.

He calls me from inside my mind. That could only mean…. No! That is blatantly impossible. I must be mistaken. Somehow I hear him through this exterior consciousness that speaks to me. There can be no other explanation.

When I look back at Master T'Sai, I find to my shock I have prevented her from placing the necklace over my head, my hand touching hers in physical restraint.

“Thy thoughts…. Give them to me,” she says as her fingers find the meld points of my face. 

There is no question of refusal.

Her touch is non-intrusive, impersonal. The traces of the consciousness that has touched me are gone, but echoes linger colored by emotions I thought long since conquered. Confusion. Doubt. And yes, anger. At that which calls me. At him. At myself most of all for the delusion of thinking as vanquished emotions I have merely buried.

She stays but a moment to assist me in regaining control, then withdraws gently. I know she will never speak of what she has seen in my mind. Dark eyes fix upon mine with some indefinable message, pity perhaps, before they clear, and the necklace of logic falls from her fingers. She speaks the inevitable words.

“This consciousness calling to thee from space…. It touches thy Human blood, S'poch. Thee hast not achieved Kolinahr.”

After the Masters have left, I pick up the necklace, the metal still warm from T'Sai's hands, but I have not proved worthy of wearing it. I lay it carefully back on the stone.

I will search him out. He has called me and I must answer.

I will search out this consciousness that is now my last opportunity of finding the solutions I seek.

Rising from my knees I turn my back to the statue and descend the steps to return to my acolyte's cell. Since I doubt I shall ever return to this world, it is necessary to take all personal belongings with me. There is only one. The glass bottle.

It appears I will have to carry its weight longer than anticipated.

* * * * *

I have joined minds with the galactic consciousness, the living machine that calls itself V'ger, and I can never be the same.

Incredible intelligence. Unlimited power. Knowledge that spans this universe. Pure and perfect logic. But so barren. So cold. So vast I was almost lost in it. And yet it acknowledged me, sought from me the one thing I was unable to give it. The one thing I have struggled my whole life to deny:

The simple feeling that exists in the emotional contact between one being and another.

How bitter. How humorous. I believe this qualifies as what my Human shipmates would consider a joke. If so, it is one of truly cosmic proportions.

What else but laughter can be the response?

He comes to my side, drawn by the sound.

His face is older than that of the brash, untried, young captain that accepted his first starship command so long ago. Darker hair. More lines about his mouth, his eyes, perhaps even some put there by my actions. There is a slight sloping of the shoulders. Is it because he has been forced to bear the weight of decisions I was formerly there to share? How can I have been so blinded by my own pain that I did not notice his?

His face is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. For the first time in two point eight years I permit myself the pleasure of saying his name.

“Jim.”

The green eyes are the same, however. They light now with concern and the affection he has felt for me since our earliest time together. The affection my coldness since I came aboard has not been able to eradicate.

There is so much to tell him. So much I have learned. So much I regret. But this is neither the time nor the place. And I am so very tired.

Instead I concentrate on giving him the information he will need to know to convince V'ger to spare Earth. It is imperative that Jim understand. Unthinkingly I reach for his hand, longing for the simple feeling that V'ger cannot begin to comprehend.

_Jim, tell me I am not like V'ger. That I have not made myself into a living machine._

Jim takes it, adds his other and I am enfolded, secure in his grasp.

My shields are inoperative, his nonexistent. Our thoughts merge through the contact and it happens. Again.

* * * * *

_The sea waits._

_Looking up from its green depths, the image wavers, viewed through shimmering moisture. The scene scans up the cliff face, up to the very pinnacle where a figure stands motionless against the sky. Indistinct, hazy, yet still identifiable as the diver but so far above. So far out of reach._

_The sea would touch him if it could, would climb the cliff with its crashing waves, its frothy surf. It has tried. Many times. It does not have the power._

_The sea would call him if it could._

_Come. Come to me. Let me hold you, comfort you, support you in my watery arms. Come, share this space with me. Let us play together. Laugh and cry together. Let us be together. There is a place here, an empty place, and only you can fill it. Come, diver. Come home._

_It lacks the power for this as well._

_All the sea can do is send up its beckoning wavelet fingers. And wait._

_But the diver never comes._

_The sea has been waiting for a very long time._

* * * * *

The meaning of the vision is undeniable.

I have been such a fool.

I should have seen the signs. They have been there for years. I should have faced them rather than choosing to ignore them. An illogical reaction, to deny the truth, and it appears Vulcans are as prone to it as Humans.

What is, after all, is.

I should have known.

* * * * *

“My task on Vulcan is completed.”

With those words, Jim smiled that special smile, the one reserved for me alone, and turned back to face the stars.

A medi-scanner appeared in McCoy's hand. He glanced at me briefly, then leaned down to the command chair. “Jim, Spock really needs some rest. Melding with V'ger has to be the most lame brained thing he's ever done, and for him that's saying a lot. Plus that was a pretty heavy-duty shot Chapel gave him. When it wears off he's gonna fall flat on his eminently logical face. If you don't want your nice new bridge covered in green blood….”

It appeared the doctor was in need of reassurance as to my physical well-being. I believe a lifted brow sufficed. Abruptly Jim turned, scanning my face with concern.

“You're off duty for twenty-four hours, Spock.”

“Admiral, I assure you—”

“Not another word, or I'll make it forty-eight.”

“Yes, sir.” I acquiesced with as much grace as possible. I felt his eyes upon my back as McCoy walked me to the turbolift, obviously intending to see that I have not forgotten the way to my cabin. The doctor is nothing if not predictable. As the doors opened, I hesitated, then turned back. What I have to tell him could not wait much longer.

“Admiral, I…I request a meeting with you at your earliest convenience.”

His face paled, for the space of a second an expression stole over his face I have never seen there before. Then it vanished as quickly as it appeared. He turned back to the viewscreen, the words spoken over his shoulder in a clear flat tone.

"I'll come down to your quarters when the watch ends.”

I showered, changed from uniform to robe, but have been unable to meditate, and have now spent the last six point three hours attempting to identify what I saw so fleetingly. I have reached a conclusion.

Although I have spent much time in their presence, I am admittedly unskilled in interpreting the facial expressions of Human emotion. Each person appears to reflect them differently. But I believe that for one second what I glimpsed on Jim's face was pure, unadulterated fear.

The emotion is shared as the buzzer sounds.

“Come.”

He walks in, jaw set, fists clenched at his sides, and stops just far enough into the room for the door to close behind him.

“If you've called me down here to tell me you've changed your mind, that you're leaving—”

“Jim—.”

“—then there's something I have to say—”

“Jim.” I take a step toward him, but his hand raises sharply palm outward, halting me.

“Stay there. I'm not finished yet.”

“I am not leaving.”

“Because I…. You're not leaving?” The hand drops.

“No.”

“Good. Because I love you.”

“Jim….” I take another step. He still does not know.

“Wait. There's more.” His jaw firms. “I don't mean a platonic…a fraternal love. I realized it two minutes after you stepped on that transporter pad. When it truly hit me how empty my life was going to be without you.”

“Jim, we are bonded.” The words pour out in a rush, not at all the way I meant to tell him.

“Bonded? The way your parents are bonded?”

“Yes. A spontaneous bonding. I do not know when it happened, but it is of long duration, well-established. The consistency, the clarity, the exact duplication of the vision from differing perspectives attest to that.”

I would go to him now, but my feet are rooted to the floor. He is the one who takes the steps that bring us millimeters apart. His hand rises to pass slowly across his forehead. Green eyes grow wide.

“You see it, too?” he says in wonder. “You're the diver.”

“And you are the sea.”

His face is unreadable, the silence that falls between us so empty my heartbeat accelerates in volume to fill it.

“I…I do not observe the bond has…troubled you?” I do not intend the statement to be a question, but that of course is what it is. The most important question of my life.

“Troubled me?”

“Interfered with your ability to command?”

He shakes his head slowly from side to side. “No.” One hand rises to land gently on the side of my face. “When you…went back to Vulcan, when you left me….” His eyes grow cloudy, and he takes a deep breath. “You said you needed to go, and I had no right to stop you from something that was so important to you, but I was so…empty…inside. Then I started seeing that same scene night after night. I came to depend on seeing it. Somehow, it…brought you closer. Sometimes it was the only thing that kept me sane.”

“And now that you know about the bond, would you have it removed if you could?”

A muscle twitched in his clenched jaw, and as I watch the green eyes darken to black.

“I'd kill anyone who tried.”

His other hand rises to skim lightly over my face. “It's been hard for you, hasn't it?”

His brow furrows with concern, the lines by his eyes deepen. I long to smooth them away but I am trapped between loving fingers and cannot move.

“As it has been for you.”

“I think I've always loved you. I was just too blind to see it. I should have known.”

“Jim….” It occurs to me that after spending two point eight years not allowing myself to say or even think his name, I have now in the space of mere minutes, said it five times.

He waits for me to speak, but I cannot. What words are adequate to erase years of pain? To remove the lines my intransigence has laid upon his face? To justify the gift of love?

Both hands card through my hair coming to rest on the back of my neck. He draws us slowly together, and his lips touch mine lightly at first, then more firmly. Our first kiss. It is a…. So gentle. So sweet. I have kissed and been kissed before, but not…. Never could I have imagined….

I find I have brought my arms up to embrace him, to clutch him tightly, and I loosen my grip.

In response he grasps me harder, demanding entrance to my mouth, to my heart, my soul.

I gladly yield what has always been his by right.

When finally we draw apart, he searches my face. “I want to make love to you. Will you let me?”

“Yes, Jim.” _Oh, yes._

I seek out the place in my mind where the bond resides. And there it is. All that is warmth and light. All that is life.

My beacon in the darkness.

I wonder that I failed to see it, but one does not search for something one has no hope of finding.

I send along the bond the words I am as yet unable to say. _I love you, Jim._

He draws back startled, then one hand again rises to brush across a furrowed forehead. Pauses. Drops.

A smile so brilliant, so shining with love, breaks out across his face.

And the years fall away as if they had never been. As rain washes the desert clean, the furrows, the lines, the tautness between beloved green eyes fade.

He is again the bright, golden star-seeker who captured my heart so long ago.

He is K'dramareth…warmer of the soul, bringer of the light, killer of the darkness.

Swiftly he grasps my hand, turns to lead me to the bed.

“Wait.” One last task to perform.

I stride into the sleeping alcove, take the glass bottle from the shelf, and return.

He watches closely as I unseal the top of my robe, remove the stopper. The scent of herbs fills the space between our bodies.

Carefully I pour a portion of the precious liquid into my hand. Bring it to my face. Smooth it over cheeks, forehead, down my neck, across my bared shoulders. I would drench myself in it if I could.

He does not understand, but as always he accepts that which has meaning to me.

In one quick motion he places his hands over mine, halting their movement. Reaches between them. Unseals my robe until it hangs fully open. Keeping his eyes locked with mine he slowly slips his hands under the robe at my shoulders and pushes along their length, down my arms, removing it as he goes until it falls to the floor in a heap leaving me naked.

I believe I have forgotten how to breathe.

He takes the bottle and stopper from my fingers, pours a large quantity of the liquid into his hand, closes the bottle and places it down next to the robe.

Spreading the emollient in both hands, he begins at my shoulders. Over my chest. Pausing at nipples that tighten at the first touch, then moving on to leave them painfully hard and wanting.

Down to ribs, stomach. Down to where he encloses my erect and seeping organ in his hands.

Slowly he strokes my length, and one hand lowers to gently cup taut testicles.

Surely my heart will burst from my side if he does not stop!

I cannot seem to keep my eyes open, my head falls back as one hand steals across my hip to dip between my buttocks.

Surely I will die if he does not continue!

And then he is there, parting me, entering me, spreading the lotion inside where his shaft will shortly follow.

A weakness flows through my body, legs that can no longer hold me upright buckle, and gasping for air I fall to my knees before him.

Human love has defeated Vulcan strength after all.

Someday I will learn to respond in words. Jim will teach me, but for now I raise my arms to clutch his waist, pull him closer.

A hand reaches down to cup my face, pressing me against his groin. The other rises and I hear the sound of a uniform seam being opened as he begins to undress.

Beneath my cheek his erection swells. Through the thin material I feel the pulse of his beating heart.

Betrayal of the flesh? Indeed. His with love for me, mine with love for him.

The flesh betrays. With love.

And I am so very grateful.

He will enter my body. 

I will enter his mind.

The diver will go home to the sea where he has always belonged.


End file.
